Hard to say i'm sorry
by HiddenBetweenTheLines
Summary: "I… Rach… Ray…" The three lettered version of her name stung, and she turned her head away from the other girl who sank a little. How had she become that monster? The soulless thing that hurt something so fragile.


**Pairing: Rachel/Santana PezBerry**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, nor do i earn any money from writing this. Its just for fun.**

**Summary: Santana decides she can't go on pretending to be mean and tries to fix everything.**

**Lyrics used: Hard to say I'm sorry by Chicago. h t t p:/w w .com/watch?v=Irc0Hn6K9V8 (just remove the spaces)**

**Please review, it doesn't take long and I could really use some tips.**

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><p>The choir room as usual was encased in the gentle swell of gossip between two tall blondes, a dark skinned Latina, a feminine young man with floppy mouse brown hair and a voluptuous hand flicking black haired girl. They were quite inseparable, when it came to gossiping about their fellow students.<p>

Four seats over from the huddle, sat a young rugged man with tanned skin and dark Mohawk. He was jeering and laughing as his fist belted the upper arm of a lumbering, sweetly smiling boy. The sweet smile was replaced by a puppy dog pout that disarmed most evils when the punch landed. It caused laughs in a young slender Asian boy that was sat just to the right of the too tall boy. His dark brown eyes lifted as the door opened, and he frowned ever so slightly as a young boy wheeled into the room.

The new boy was ignorant to the other boys frown because he was busy looking over his shoulder and laughing with the beautiful Asian girl with blue highlights in her black hair. Following behind them was a sandy skinned pampered blonde boy. His fingers were holding up his top a little bit so he could check on his abs. His little obsession caused a giggle from the gossipers.

They all knew that another student was missing, but the vast majority didn't care. The sweet, too tall, boy had his eyes trained on the door. The other students had yet to find out that the missing girl had dumped him over the weekend. He'd been trying to put a brave face on it, but he was hurting. He had always been kind to her, and he might not have stood up for her in public, because he was scared of the repercussions (not that he knew that word) on his reputation, but he felt like he loved her. It had stung when she'd told him that they just weren't working and she couldn't be emotionally invested (her words) in a boy that didn't listen to her. He'd told her that he tried to listen but she said such big words and it hurt his head. He'd tried to read a thesaurus, but that had made his head hurt worse. He just turned back to his Mohawk sporting friend and made plans for the evening, consisting of C.O.D.

A set of hazel eyes, attached to one Quinn Fabray, and a set of dark brown eyes, belonging to Santana Lopez, were also trained on the door, waiting for the short missing girl to bounce into the room.

_XxXxXx_

_The Lima summer was too hot. It made the four girls playing in the sand pit at the park uncomfortable. The smallest of the four was talking incessantly about how her daddies had taken her to see a show in the big city. Her small hands were piling up sand into a fort with the biggest brightest smile on her face. Two of the other three were listening to her with rapt attention. The other one was slowly wandering away from the sand pit towards the sound of quacking and splashing. The darkest of the small girls had noticed and had called her back._

"_But Santy... duckies,"_

"_Papi said no wandering off Brit. Get back here," Her voice was strong and commanding even for a six year old. None of her friends would argue with her. Even if the girl did wander, there were three dads sat on the bench a little way off watching them just to make sure they were safe._

"_San..." The other, quieter blonde looked between her three friends with a smile._

"_You think we'll be friends forever?" the hazel eyed six year old asked. The loud small brunette was grinning and nodding making the other girls giggle at her._

_XxXxXx_

_The loud small brunette gasped, having just been slammed back into a row of lockers by an all too familiar pair of hands with a glare from all too familiar dark eyes, followed by a set of blue and a set of hazel. The ice followed after with a laughing jock._

_XxXxXx_

The teacher, a curly, blonde, hair gelled, grinning man, entered the room in a whirlwind of words. He set down a load of papers on the piano as the band and an older man entered with him. The older man sat behind the piano whilst scratching his beard. Brittany whispered intimately in the Latina's ear, that she wondered what it would feel like to have a beard tickling her intimate areas. The dark skinned girl turned a sickly shade of green at the thought. Her eyes flickered to the blonde, to see Quinn looking completely appalled. She'd obviously heard the grinning girl's words.

Glee club was underway. Song ideas were bouncing around the room but nobody was agreeing on anything. It was one of the problems with having such a diverse group of kids on one team. Almost everyone was glad that there was a distinct lack of somebody interrupting them to suggest some sort of musical number. Almost everyone...

"Quinn..." The Latina whispered past her blonde grinning friend to the blonde with hazel eyes.

"S," Quinn replied, her eyes hadn't lifted from the door.

"I can't do this anymore. We only did this to make it better and now she's not even coming," Brittany smiled brightly from her seat between them; thankful that her best friend had admitted why they were there, if only to her two best friends. Hazel eyes had softened and an almost undetectable nod was issued.

"I miss her," Brittany said honestly. She'd always been honest with the two about missing their small friend. She had always been honest about hating the way they treated her. She'd always been completely honest with the missing brunette about how she felt about her. The brunette knew that the blonde hated the school popularity system. "Go find her, make it better."

"Brit'..."

"Don't Brit' me S'. You miss her more than I do. Make it better,"

"Girl's I'm sorry to interrupt your social time, but do you think you can maybe pay attention?" The blonde teacher asked them, and the Latina shot him an angry ice cold glare that made him have to stop the squeak that almost escaped him.

"San..." Quinn warned her softly and Santana sighed. The brunette got to her feet with a shake of the head and informed the teacher that...

"Am off to find Berry," to which the whole group groaned. "Are you fucking serious?" She growled at them and they balk at her. "You think we can do this thing without her? All you're doing is arguing with each other, and she's the only one that can get you to all agree on things, which is more than I can say for you blondie," Her eyes fix the teacher who stepped back in fear of getting lamped. Santana turned away from the group to storm out the door, but there was a really small brunette blocking her way. The small girl was looking at her with a soft confused look on her face. Santana just schooled her looks into her patented cold glare which in turn made Rachel cock her head to the side, in a completely adorable way. The rest of the glee club was watching curiously but Santana didn't care. She growled at the brunette who backed up scared after years of torment. Santana's face softened slightly and she rubbed her forehead letting the other girl know that, she was uncomfortable.

"Sorry I'm late Mr Schue, my Dads needed to see me. Did I miss much?" Rachel asked the teacher who just shook his head. The small girl went to step past Santana, but the darker girl gently took her hand when they were parallel.

"Rach... Can we step outside and talk?" She could see the indecision in those liquid chocolate brown eyes. She had already missed 15 minutes of the class. "We won't miss anything, I promise, this lot can't agree on anything anyway." She said and Rachel smiled softly at her as she nodded and stepped back out of the room. Santana followed her out and then lead her to the bleachers at the back of the school. Two blondes had exited glee at the same time and were sat a little way off looking out at the track, where the athletics team was doing laps. Rachel sat down, and then edged away a bit when Santana sat too close to her.

"What's this about Santana? I didn't think we were on speaking terms anymore." The dark eyed short girl said as she played with her pleated skirt. In all honesty, even though they were now in glee together, they barely spoke.

She had noted that the slushies had been stopped, and her shoulders were no longer permanently bruised from being shoved into lockers, and Brittany no longer dragged her into the privacy of a bathroom for a hug, now opting to do it in the halls. She had noted down all these huge changes, but didn't let herself believe, just in case... just in case they were setting her up for a fall.

"I don't have the right words. I can't articulate what I want to say," The other girl said in a low voice.

"You could sing it," Rachel had the brains to at least look sarcastic. Santana just grinned out at the field and thought of a few songs that she could sing, but wasn't going to. Instead she said a few lines of an oldie.

"_After all that we've been through, I will make it up to you. I promise to_." Santana had a distinct feeling, as her dark cheeks blushed red, that she was going soft.

"You do realize that's a love song right?" Rachel's voice was flat as she deadpanned at the girl.

"Yeah well, the words of that little bit are appropriate. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I can't even explain how much… Everything just got so… and I was a complete bitch to the one person I never ever wanted to hurt… and then I didn't know how to stop it, and then stupid head over there got herself pregnant," to which Quinn shot her a glare that chilled both girls to the bone.

"I don't believe I'm talented enough to get myself pregnant," The blonde ground out from where she was sat braiding Brittany's hair. She muttered bitch under her breath, and Brittany chuckled. Rachel was silent, waiting for the brunette to continue on her self-deprecating verse. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I… Rach… Ray…" The three lettered version of her name stung, and she turned her head away from the other girl who sank a little. How had she become that monster? The soulless thing that hurt something so fragile.

"_Ray'," Santana's voice was soft as she knelt down, so she could look into the smaller girl's eyes. Rachel was sat on the floor, with big fat teardrops falling from her big round brown eyes. Her rosy cheeks were stained with what seemed to be a never ending barrage of tears. Santana lifted a grubby hand to wipe the offending liquid away, just to dirty the other girl's face. The Latina grumbled as she wiped her hands on her scruffy ripped jeans and down the front of the t-shirt her brother had given her. It was far too big for her, but she loved it because her brother was her hero. _

"_What happened?" The girl asked and Rachel looked right into her eyes with those big, liquid chocolate orbs and blubbered out;_

"_A big boy pushed me over," and she lifted her blue dress a little to show the now furious girl the rip in her white tights, the gash in her knee, and the blood quickly dying white a bright red. Santana felt the angry fire taking over her chest. She was seeing red, but didn't let her voice betray that. As softly as she could, she brushed a floppy dark brown fringe out of the way of those beautiful eyes._

"_Which big boy…?" Her voice was caring, giving nothing away of the malice shredding through her system. Rachel gave a really big sniff as she pointed with a shaking finger at the lone boy rollerblading around the basketball court and smashing pucks into an empty hockey net. He was really big, with WMHS embroidered on his letterman racket. An 8 year old Santana didn't care. She had no fear, no matter how big the boy was. She placed a kiss to Rachel's forehead and told her to wait where she was with her eyes closed._

_The young Latina returned to her 15 minutes later with a bloody nose and split lip. Her left eye was showing the 1__st__ signs of a huge shiner and she had a huge proud grin on her face. Rachel saw the skin racked up on Santana's knuckles, and whimpered out of worry. Santana just shrugged it off and downplayed it, but the boy was laid out on the basketball court with his hockey stick snapped in two._

"_Let's go get cleaned up," The protective girl was rewarded with a huge watery smile that reached all the way up to huge watery eyes. She gave Rachel a piggyback all the way home. The thought niggling in the back of her mind as she watched pops 1 clean up Rachel's knee, was how could anyone want to hurt something so fragile and innocent?_

_XxXxXx_

"I want to make it better," Santana went to lace her fingers with Rachel's but the smaller girl pulled her hand away.

"Make it better?" She asked as she watched Santana from the corner of her eye. "You can't make it better Santana. You shouldn't have done what you did. We were best friends, and you betrayed everything we ever had. What do you want from me? Do you really expect me to just forget?" She stopped and turned to really look at the girl as she whispered… "I gave you everything San, and then you tried to ruin my life. Do you know how many times I sat in my bathroom at night staring at the razors in my cabinet wondering what it would take to end it?" At her words Santana's dark skin paled faster than it ever had before. "I would never do it. I'm not dumb enough, or selfish enough, to give you that as well. There were times though, when it would have been easier than dragging myself out of bed every morning to face you. You can't make it better. I don't even want you to try anymore. I gave up on you San, let it go, move on." Rachel got to her feet and left Santana in shocked silence. The Latina watched the girl's skirt bounce as she skipped down the bleachers, gave Brittany a hug, ignored Quinn, and left. Just like that she was gone.

Her parents had come to talk to her after school to tell her that pops 1 had been promoted to the city branch. They were to move to New York two weeks after Rachel's conversation with Santana. She didn't tell any of them. One morning the glee club got to school, and there was no Rachel. Nobody gave much thought to it for the 1st week, but then they knew something was really wrong the 2nd week. Mr Schue eventually slid the news in whilst trying to get them to sing another journey song. She was in the city, she'd escaped, faster than anyone thought possible.


End file.
